I get excited every paycheck because I know my investments are going to increase by a decent chunk. I use Mint to keep a close eye on what the current value is at and make goal marks to hit. Every time I hit a goal, I do a little happy dance and decide what I want my next marker to be and when I want to hit it by. I’m nowhere close to being financially independent or even debt free, but it’s exciting to see the ground work being laid and watching it grow.
Sam…just read this article and I want to say that this is the best posting on passive income I have ever read…in a blog, article, or book. Thanks for making a difference and being an inspiration as to how it can all be accomplished. One of the great benefits of the internet is that people are willing to share their stories and experiences with each other online. If we had this when I was working professionally (20-40 years ago), it would have saved me from making some rather poor financial decisions that affected my retirement income. In a way, the internet is making up for the loss of financial security in the loss of The Defined Benefit Plan for retirement. Bravo!

2) Find Out What You Are Good At. Everybody is good at something, be it investing, playing an instrument, playing a sport, communications, writing, art, dance and so forth. You should also list several things that interest you most. If you can combine your interest plus expertise, you should be able to monetize your skills. A tennis player can teach tennis for $65 an hour. A writer can pen her first novel. A finance buff can invest in stocks. A singer can record his first song. The more interests and skills you have, the higher chance you can create something that can provide passive income down the road.

Many marketers hope for a campaign to go viral — meaning it's recognized, widely-accepted, and influential. But there's no guaranteed formula. However, if you think about some of your favorite viral marketing campaigns, you'll notice some common features. Marketers wanting to reach a bigger audience should keep these attributes in mind when creating their next campaign:
Marketers and agencies commonly consider celebrities as a good influencer with endorsement work. This conception is similar to celebrity marketing. Based on a survey, 69% of company marketing department and 74% of agencies are currently working with celebrities in the UK. The celebrity types come along with their working environment. Traditional celebrities are considered as singles, dancers, actors or models. These types of public characters are continuing to be the most commonly used by company marketers. The survey found that 4 in 10 company having worked with these traditional celebrities in the prior year. However, people these years are spending more time on social media rather than traditional media such as TV. The researchers also claim that customers are not firmly believed celebrities are effectively influential.[43][44]

The more residual income you can build, the better off you’ll be. In fact, it’s said that the average millionaire has 7 different streams of income. By creating passive income streams that generate money while you sleep, you’ll build wealth faster and diversify the ways you’re able to make money – which helps protect you from the loss of any one individual income stream.

Thus, it's easy to dream of money just arriving, without our having to clock in to earn it. Fortunately, passive income streams don't have to be a dream. There are many sources, with examples including REIT dividend income, residual money, real-estate investments, interest, and other income-generating assets. Here's a look at 15 of them -- see which opportunities could work for you.
On-demand: More than a decade after “The Blair Witch Project” and its viral-before-viral-was-a-thing campaign, the producers of “Paranormal Activity,” who made their 2007 film for about $15,000, invited those interested in the film to demand their local theaters show the movie. The result? A wide, nationwide release and more than $107 million in box office revenue in the U.S. alone. (2, 3)
Online courses have exploded in the past five years. Experts and creators can now create video courses to teach others their craft. A course can be about anything that people want to learn. Friends of mine have created courses and say the amount of effort is similar to writing a book. But once its done and starts to sell, it’s a solid passive income stream.
I came across your site and I love it! My husband and I work in corporate America and I own a consulting/coaching business. I have a goal to gross 1 MIL within the next 10 years I’ll be 40 then. How can I begin now? How do I find a millionaire mentor? We live in Philadelphia, PA all of our friends and family are mostly employed some with small businesses however i have huge goals I am working so hard to become a full time entrepreneur. Seems like everyone we know are all on the same level and I fear we’ll stay here of we don’t meet someone willing to show us how to level up. Any suggestions?
He is the owner of jeffbullas.com. Forbes calls him a top influencer of Chief Marketing Officers and the world's top social marketing talent. Entrepreneur lists him among 50 online marketing influencers to watch. Inc.com has him on the list of 20 digital marketing experts to follow on Twitter. Oanalytica named him #1 Global Content Marketing Influencer. BizHUMM ranks him as the world's #1 business blogger. Learn More
The use of Viral Marketing is relatively simple. It’s about the fact that people pick up and pass on the marketing message on the internet and social media. That’s why it’s important to first come up with a marketing campaign that’s not just inspirational, but also easy to share via for instance Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn. The marketing message needs to grab people’s attention and generate interest right away. It’s also a good idea to choose a specific target group that is almost certain to pass the message on in their network. That’s why it’s wise to choose a marketing message that’s easy to share with friends, fans or followers. That way, the message can spread across the internet like an oil spill, and even influence other groups via the target group.
Do you have any items you don’t use all the time that others would like to borrow? Useful items like a truck, trailer, trampoline, kayak, or even your own yard could earn you passive income as rental items. This also includes renting out spare rooms in your house with the help of websites like Airbnb. Hop on your favorite social media site, upload pictures of your items, set a price, and tell the world they’re ready for rent.
The appeal of these passive income sources is that you can diversify across many small investments, rather than in a handful of large ones. When you invest directly in real estate, you have to commit a lot of capital to individual projects. When you invest in these crowdfunded investments, you can spread your money across many uncorrelated real estate ventures so individual investments don't cause significant issues.
This is where my previous mention of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” becomes relevant. A large number of successful viral marketing campaigns involve real people reacting to imagined situations. Think about TNT’s ‘Drama Button’ campaign. It brought the drama of an intense show onto the streets of Belgium, shocking the real people on the streets. People loved it because they could see themselves in those reactions.
Personal finance software can go a long way in helping you to take control of your money and meeting your financial goals. It’s important to note, however, that some focus more on budgeting and expense tracking while others prioritize investing portfolios and income taxes. Explore several different programs and read reviews to find the one that’s right for you.
When you write a blog post on your website, that article immediately goes out to your followers. But the content also remains on the website for others to find via search engines or social media. Each time somebody reads your content, there’s the potential to serve them an ad, product for purchase, or affiliate link (many links in this post are affiliate links). Each set of eyeballs that read your content carry the potential for passive income.
I wanted to specifically call out one particular strategy within equity investing that bears mentioning – dividend growth investing is when you focus on stocks that not only pay a dividend but have a history of strong dividend growth. When I was first building my portfolio of individual stocks, I focused on buying companies with a history of dividends, a history of strong growth, and financials that supported a continuation of both.
This was a very inspirational article! I too spent 20+ years in a high-stress career selling a high-end product under a 100 percent commission plan; that is, no salary! I realized, after racking up millions of frequent flyer miles, that there had to be a better and less-stressful way of making a living. My goal was to design my own lifestyle free of corporate shackles, which required a pre-determined amount of passive income.
I have six rental units which are a good source of passive income. I don’t use a property manager because you are right…they take about 10% of your rent. There are really only 2 things that tenants call about: 1. A plumbing issue 2. Heat/Air problems. Just find a plumber and heat/air guy you can trust. I travel a lot for my primary job. When a call comes in from a tenant, I can call the repair guy in just as easy as a property manager.
Thanks for the info…I kind of figured it is really not that expensive to live if you are not an extravagant person. I could definitely figure out how to funnel expenses through a part time business…I think I keep thinking along the lines that I’m going to be paying the same tax rate after retirement, but reality is you could get pretty lean and mean if one focused on it. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being utter panic mode, how worried are you about your “pile” lasting through a 50 year retirement now that you are a couple years into it?
Running a contest – Pick a prize that your followers would like to win so they are incentivized to share and enter. Post it over social media and email with an emphasis on your branding and some news coming soon. Have the winner announced over Facebook Live or an alternative channel with the product launch at the same time to capitalize on the amount of traffic the video will receive.
Quick question. I’m 21 years old and currently working full time (50 hours a week averaging about 12 dollars an hour. I was working 35 making enough to get by and save a little, but I read your post on the notion of working more than 40 to get ahead and decided a third job was best while I’m getting residency to get lower- instate tuition at OSU. So props, you had a direct influence on my life.)
I want to develop a passive income stream in the next 4 years, nothing grand, maybe an extra 500-1000 dollars a month, but I’m not sure how to go about it so I was wondering if you had any tips. I’m so-so as a writer, and am currently finishing up my second book (just write as a hobby), and in the past made about 30-50 dollars an hour as a free lance writer but that was a couple of years back, it was only for about 10-20 hours a month, and the gig just dried up. I just got particularly lucky with that. I’ve tried online poker as a means in the past, and which I learned A) was not passive income but hard work and B) I have an addictive personality which resulted in me losing the 4g I earned in 6 weeks over the span of 72 hours so that’s out of the picture. I also partook in some illegal selling of things when I was younger, but being a little older and wiser the risk-reward ratio for possibly ending up in Jail just doesn’t match up. I tried making three businesses (dog walking, house cleaning, and personal assistant) and while those all were succesful to varying degrees and earned me about 15-25 dollars an hour, they weren’t mobile and quiet honestly I don’t have the time to be a full time dog walker or run a house cleaning operation seeing as I’ll be in school, work, and athletics.
While compiling this list, I did my best to avoid scams, and stick with practical ideas that work. I have tried many (but not all) of these ideas. Some of these helped me earned a few dollars here and there, but there are some that helped me earn extra money on the side every single day — and some are still providing me with revenue! Note that not all ideas will fit your skills and abilities. What works for you depends on your abilities and your current financial situation.
The Lake Tahoe property continues to be 100% managed by a property-management company. It feels amazing not to have to do anything. I can't wait to bring up my boy this coming winter to play in the snow! I could go up this winter, but I want him to be able to walk and run comfortably before he goes. I've been dreaming of this moment for over 10 years now. The income from the property is highly dependent on how much it snows. Summer income is always very strong.
Passive income can help you achieve true financial independence, which by definition means having enough income to pay your living expenses for the rest of your life without having to work full time. Passive income is crucial to the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, a movement dedicated to achieving financial independence and retiring early. Whether you’re committed to retiring early or not, passive income is a great way to make progress towards your retirement goals.
If you are successful in creating a viral model with very short cycle times, watch out for what can happen. Several companies that have been lucky enough to achieve this have been shocked by the enormous need to scale server capacity. Fortunately with cloud computing offerings such as Amazon EC2 and S3, it is easier than in the past to scale on demand.
I’ve been researching a path to financial independence, and the wealth of knowledge here is amazing, but at times overwhelming. I’m honestly not quite sure where to start. Whether it be paying off debt (which I’ve always heard is priority 1), or sinking money into realtyshares or CDs for growth. I’d love to generate a passive income (in a few years time) to supplement some of my day job to have time to spend with my little one during her golden childhood years, but not sure if there’s even a right order to go about it.
The campaign didn’t target Dove’s products but instead focused on changing a woman’s perception of how she sees herself, also changing the way how Dove is viewed as a company. It is said that “Woman aged between 18-34 are twice as likely to think highly of a brand that made an empowering ad and nearly 80% more likely to like, share, comment, and subscribe after watching one.” Through the video, Dove wanted to make women realize that they are overly-critical of themselves to make them feel better about their appearance.
To give you a preview of this post, what you will learn is that there are two key parameters that drive how viral growth happens, the Viral Coefficient, and the Viral Cycle Time. To fully illustrate the arguments, I have included two spreadsheet models (embedded) that you can play with interactively to see how viral growth works. There is a risk with this level of depth, that some readers will find this too technical, and if you find yourself reacting that way, may I recommend that you jump straight to the conclusion, which is under the heading Lessons Learned towards the bottom of the article.
​Affiliate marketing is the practice of partnering with a company (becoming their affiliate) to receive a commission on a product. This method of generating income works the best for those with blogs and websites. Even then, it takes a long time to build up before it becomes passive. If you want to get started with affiliate marketing check out this great list of affiliate marketing programs.

Scales easily from small to very large. To spread like wildfire, the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large. The weakness of the Hotmail model is that a free email service requires its own mail servers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mail servers must be added very quickly or the rapid growth will bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill the host before spreading, nothing is accomplished. So long as you have planned how you can add mail servers rapidly, you’re okay. You must build in scalability to your viral model.

​If you pay your bills with a credit card make sure it offers cash back rewards. You can let your rewards accrue for a while and possibly put the easy money you earned toward another passive income venture! (Be sure that the card you select doesn’t have an annual fee or you might be cancelling out your rewards). Check out this list of the best Cashback Rewards Cards.

Hello, I have just started my own blog this week. I too have read a lot of Rich Dad Poor Dad’s books and the 4 Hour Work Week and am hoping to be on the same path as you. I love your blog! Everything looks great. I am still learning— so much to figure out! My blog is bettybordeauxdoesitall.com. I have to be anonymous because of my job. Thanks for the inspiration and best you!
The CD is one of the most effective ways to create passive wealth over time and has been used by investors for generations. Ask your grandparents; it is highly likely they own CDs (TDs) with their local bank or Credit Union. This is done by creating CD ladders to maximize effectiveness. Most Bank and Credit Union CDs have zero fees attached unless you cash out before maturity.
But, you don't need to go further than that. You can simply write it and publish it and collect the income. That's all. Send out a couple emails to your list (if you have one) or post it on social media, and there you have it. Passive income. Now, the amount of income you receive depends on the quality of the book you've written. How well did you craft the message? How targeted was the information to your audience? It counts.
The use of Viral Marketing is relatively simple. It’s about the fact that people pick up and pass on the marketing message on the internet and social media. That’s why it’s important to first come up with a marketing campaign that’s not just inspirational, but also easy to share via for instance Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn. The marketing message needs to grab people’s attention and generate interest right away. It’s also a good idea to choose a specific target group that is almost certain to pass the message on in their network. That’s why it’s wise to choose a marketing message that’s easy to share with friends, fans or followers. That way, the message can spread across the internet like an oil spill, and even influence other groups via the target group.
Venture Debt – I invested $120,000 in my business school friend’s venture debt fund. He started his own after spending 8 years at one of the largest venture debt funds as a Managing Partner. I’m very focused on income generating assets in this low interest rate environment. The true returns are yet to be seen, as the fund has a 5-7 year life before it returns all its capital.
I first discovered the power of passive income when I was a senior in high school. I started a mobile billboard business where I would rent a small piece of land from someone who had land along a busy highway. Then I would place one of my billboard trailers on the land and rent out the ad space on the billboard. I would usually charge about $300 per month for the ad space, meanwhile I was only paying $50 per month to the landowner for the ground rent. I got to the point to where I had 9 billboard faces and was making quite a substantial income for someone in high school. I really learned how passive income could free up my life… this business is what lead me into investing in real estate.
Please remember that your passive income may not be higher than your active income. Your goal should be to achieve a combination where both incomes are greater than your current active income. Don’t expect too much, but always remain optimistic. You and I may not be as lucky as J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown, but we both certainly deserve a good vacation.
3. Start as soon as possible. Building a livable passive-income stream takes a tremendously long time, largely because of declining interest rates since the late 1980s. Gone are the days of making a 5%-plus return on a short-term CD or savings account. Today, the best 12-month CD is at 2.5%, and the best money-market rate is about 1.85%, which is not bad, considering such rates were below 0.5% just a couple of years ago. Know that every $100 you save can generate at least $2.5 in passive income.
In the case of viral marketing, "viral" refers to something that spreads quickly and widely across its audience. Viral marketing is a deliberate enterprise, though the distribution of a message happens organically. As such, social media provides the perfect ecosystem for viral marketing, though it has its roots in traditional word-of-mouth marketing. While the practice was much more widely used in the early to mid-2000s, as new internet businesses were being created in extreme numbers, it is still common among internet-based business-to-consumer (B-to-C) companies. The widespread adoption of social networks, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, has enabled modern viral marketing efforts and increased their efficacy.

The disadvantages to consider with viral marketing include the nuisance factor. Due to the large amount of email people receive daily, viral marketing messages may be viewed as spam. Another consideration is negative marketing buzz. A message may not be construed as intended, and could be discussed in a negative manner. Viral marketing can also be hard to measure.

What's crazy is that my book income is more than my SF condo-rental income. Yet I didn't have to come up with $1.2 million of capital (the minimum cost to buy my condo today) to create my book. All I needed to create my book was energy, effort, and creativity. I truly believe that developing your own online product is one of the best ways to make money.
Procter & Gamble did not offer any discounts or ask buyers to buy Old Spice, it just gave a suggestion and managed to catch the attention of consumers through the ad. Buyers might buy the Old Spice body wash without consciously realizing why they did so! The lesson is to be creative. Use social media channel to foster brand loyalty in an altogether new way.
​Network marketing, or multi-level marketing, seems to be on the rise. Companies such as Young Living Oils, Avon, Pampered Chef, and AdvoCare are all multi-level marketing companies. You can earn passive income through network marketing by building a team underneath you (often referred to as a down line.) Once you have a large team you can earn commissions off of their sales without having to do much.
Good suggestions. I have many of these. One word about the “app” idea. I had a great idea related to personal taxes that I tried to get off the ground with my accountant as a partner. I would say it’s difficult to do this unless you have a coder on your team. Hiring someone is not really viable financially unless the app is simple. When we finally got the quote for a coder to write what we wanted (and after doing lots of mock ups ourselves and getting a demo for investors) the estimate was about 750k just to really get started.
One great way to generate a passive income is through affiliate marketing. Now, this does depend on the size of your list. Yes, size matters when it comes to your list. Especially if you're looking to make some serious money and do it on autopilot. But, list-building takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. And you need to add value to your list or you become obsolete.

Airbnb is a concept that has only been around for a few years, but it has exploded around the globe. Airbnb allows people to travel all around the world and to stay in accommodations that are a lot less expensive than traditional hotels. They do this by staying with participating Airbnb members who rent out part of their homes to travelers. By participating in Airbnb, you can use your residence to accommodate guests and earn extra money just for renting out space in your home.

But that didn’t stop Rovio from switching up their strategy. They decided to build a fanbase in smaller European markets. Three months later, Angry Birds hit the top spot in the Finnish app store after only a few hundred downloads. And from Finland, it snowballed to hit number one across Sweden, Greece, and Denmark. In the process, the app gained 40,000 downloads.
I’ve built several businesses since 2008 using one or more of these models. I’ve been featured in magazines and articles across the globe, and since I started my journey I’ve generated over $5M in earnings from these businesses. All of my income and expenses for those businesses dating back to October 2008 have been tracked publicly on SPI.com. You can see 10 years of income reports here.

Who doesn’t like some down and dirty affiliate fees?! Especially if you realize it can be even easier to make money this way than with an ebook. After all, you simply need to concentrate on pumping out some content for your own site and getting the traffic in, often via Google or social media. Unsurprisingly, most people can enjoy their first affiliate sale within 30 days of starting a blog. Continue reading >

Apple maintains it’s viral appeal, with the iPhone X through their launch of the "Selfies on iPhone X" campaign. The secret to this example of viral marketing (which has clocked up over millions views both online and offline) is very simple: a product so great that it turns people into fans of the brand all on its own. People love themselves. If they have the possibility of spreading this love digitally through selfies, it’s almost a guaranteed win. The iPhone X’s brilliant selfie feature spread virally through various media forms before apple repurposed the viral content into one masterpiece, the iPhone X selfies film. As one of the YouTube comments says, “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”… This viral marketing through video has allowed Apple to spread key features such as their Portrait Lighting effects and their TrueDepth camera.